This is all completely impossible to resolve of course, maybe Miss Karpeles was winding us all up. Anyway, it hasn't stopped "folk" arguing the toss in thousands of threads in web forums for years, and before that magazines, books, chapbooks, pamphlets, and probably little wooden notepads on Hadrian's Wall in the 2nd century AD. See traditional legionary folk song collected by R Sutcliff in "The Eagle of the Ninth" (I jest).

Is Flossie Malavialle supposed to sing Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel in a folk club? Was Bob Copper right to like the blues? Why did Jim Copper write old songs AND music hall songs in his song book (admittedly separated)? Is "You'll Never Walk Alone" a folk song if it's sung by the Kop at Anfield? These are all of course rhetorical questions but hide a point. ALL the music which people have picked up over the millennia goes into their very own melting pot which may then be added to other people's pots via memory, writing songs down, recording them on an Edison cylinder, or onto a hard disk in a home studio. Some of it will become Folk Music. Nothing WE say will stop it.

Christ, I'm sounding like Karl Dallas or Bob Pegg. It's nearly midnight GMT, I'm going to bed - I'll probably dream of the Folk Police riding me down now!